If you’ve got a 401(k) retirement plan through your employer and leave your job, you’ve got only four choices:

You can do nothing at all.

You can roll the money into another 401(k), if your new employer has one.

You can move your retirement savings into an IRA.

You can close up the account and take the money.

The last of these is the worst. It will cost you – big time – as you’ll absorb a huge tax hit.

The first two options – leaving the money right where it is, or moving it to your new employer’s 401(k) – are safe and sane.

And the other option? Well, that’s a bit more complicated. While it might not be the worst move, it probably isn’t the best, what with all the fees you’ll likely incur. But this hasn’t been stopping 401(k) firms from pushing their own fee-generating IRAs.

This is what the Government Accountability Office recently learned when it took a look at what kind of advice was being given to folks in this situation.

You’d like to think that an individual adrift on churning financial seas would get some straightforward advice from people who ought to know which way the tide is running. But you might get sold a a bill of goods.

What they might tell you – move the money to an IRA they’ve got – could well be just great – for their bottom line.

Know your options. And know why advisers might be saying what they are saying.